Fleming Wilt

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01:09Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, a podcast for and about the people of the Nashville restaurant scene. Now here's your host, the CEO of New Light Hospitality Solutions, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City! Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We are so excited to be coming to you today. Our guest is Fleming Wilt, and he is the president of Christie Cookie Company. And he joins the show today to talk about all kinds of stuff. We talked about his last 13 months has really been a whirlwind for him. They merged with Rich Products in August of last year. There was a tornado, their building was damaged, and then going into the pandemic, just kind of what that was like leading that company, what he sees for his future, was all things I really wanted to uncover today.

02:13And we just had a great conversation, really enjoyed talking with him. And I want to say a quick word about Trust20, our sponsor for this episode. You heard on the initial there, the initial commercial that Trust20 will do a certification for your restaurant, and they are out there doing them like crazy. They are doing marketing materials, everything they possibly can to let the general public know that you are Trust20 certified. Amartral Hospitality with Puckets and Deacon's New South are two of their newest certifications. So if you'd like to be announced as one of the newest locations as well, visit trust20.co and get your certification today. Let's jump right in. With much excitement, I'd like to welcome in Fleming Wilt, who is president of Christie Cookie Company. Welcome in, Fleming. Thank you. Glad to be here, Brandon.

03:14So I'm super, super excited to get to talk to you, the man at the helm of such an iconic Nashville brand, Christie Cookie Company. I know I have been eating Christie cookies forever, and when somebody gives me a gift around the holiday season, any kind of cookies, if it's Christie cookies, I know that they care. Nice. Good. Thank you. Right. That's where it is. It's like, oh, you went all out and you got the best cookies. I want to talk to you about so many things, but first let's let our listeners know just a little bit about you. You're a native Nashvilleian. I am. Grew up in Nashville. Went to high school for a couple years in northern Virginia. Otherwise, I was at MBA my junior and senior year. Went to Vanderbilt. Did two stints at Vanderbilt. One at the undergrad and one at the executive Owen program. Worked in the banking industry. Did some investment work in my 20s.

04:16And about 28 years old, I joined Christie Cookies as president. Wow. At 28 years old. 28. The story there is that the guy named Mark Gill had taken over as president for Christie Howe, who founded the company. Mark was a terrific guy and had really done a good job of starting to turn the company around. At age 46, Mark was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I got to spend some time with Mark before he passed. And that was a very meaningful time to me. He passed. I then came into that role while I was at the Owen school. My father was an investor with Christie Howe, who founded the company. At that time, my father said, well, what are you going to do after you get finished with this fancy degree of yours? And I said, well, I don't really know.

05:17And he said, well, why don't you help me out for a little while? I said, well, I'll help you out for a short while. Because I was fearful of the family-work relationship. But my father's been a great partner all these years and proud of what we've done there. But I got involved after Mark passed and been there ever since. I was 28. Didn't expect to be there for that long. Didn't know a thing about baking. I knew I was coming from a banking background. I was a, I'm going to think of myself more as a numbers guy. I learned operations. But still, any chef that I step into a kitchen with can call me out for being ignorant in the kitchen very quickly. I love that. Will Newman from Eddie's Barbecue said something similar. He's like, I'm good with this stuff. I understand barbecue. But I put people around me that really understand it. He goes, believe me, I walk into a kitchen and people know real quick I'm not a chef. I'm a big fan of Will. Good fella.

06:17He's a great guy. So tell me about Christy Cookie. I mean, obviously there's, there's, everybody knows about Christy Cookie. Everybody's had Christy Cookies. But tell me like the, what is your 90 second elevator speech? Tell me about the company, what you're about. And just anything you can give our listeners just a good idea of what your company is. Well, to customers, the customer facing message is that we have never changed recipes. We've just compromised on our quality since we began with the same recipes that Christy Howe created in his kitchen originally. I think that was the main thing to stick with when I came in, not knowing anything about baking. I do believe there's one thing, one way to screw it up, and that is to start compromising on your quality. It would be tempting, as some of our competitors over the years have done so, to say, hey, butter prices are high this year. We're going to compromise. We're going to go to 80 percent butter, 20 percent margarine this year.

07:21And over a year, year over year, that happens again and again. And you're left with the product that's nowhere near the original. So we've never compromised on the quality of our ingredients. And that's what's, I think, kept us, our commitment to our quality, our commitment to our brand is what's kept us strong all these years. Internally, I treat it very much like a family business, integrity, open door communication, open door policy. We engage all of our employees in the financial side of it. We engage. We have a very inclusive bonus structure program. And with that bonus structure, I'm continually updating our associates throughout the year as to how we're doing toward that. It's very goal driven. It's very lucrative to to those associates. But it keeps everybody on the same path moving forward. What's what's your North Star? I mean, as you said, integrity and what's your true North that you're searching for?

08:23Is it transparency in everything you do? Is it what's the I guess you just kind of outlined some of your core values. But if I was to work there, is having just that that knowledge of all of the financials and what we're all going for, is that what keeps everybody going in the right direction? Yeah, I mean, I guess to say North Star, you know, I want to sleep well at night and I want to and I want to I want to be able to face people the next day with whatever message of integrity. I need to trust me, trust the direction we're headed. And if they have any questions along the way, I want them to feel comfortable coming in and asking me. And I have good relationships with most all of our associates. There's I don't feel like there's a hesitation to come in and see me and ask me any questions that somebody might have that we're all on all rowing in the same direction, so to speak.

09:24Very cool. Do the right thing. You know, I think that's the that's kind of talk about integrity. Do the right thing. If you're always doing the right thing, you sleep a lot better at night. Exactly. Right. We're going that that we're at. So you I think I read that you 28 you take over the company and your father and Christie Hauke were partners. And you started slowly buying shares. And you ended up being the majority owner of the company at some point. And I really want to get into the last 13 months of your life, because I don't think anybody could have written a script like this. And I just kind of want to go through your thoughts and what it's been like for you. So August 22nd of 2019. Is that the day that was closed? That was your close date. So you were acquired by Rich's Food Foods, the richest foods, rich products, rich products.

10:30Tell me about that. How did that come to come about? Was it was it how that was able to help your company? And tell me that story. Gladly. It really goes back. It goes back further than 13 months. This probably goes back from today, maybe three years where we still got to the point to where we were starting to back up our sales growth. It was on a very good trajectory. Our team was doing a fantastic job. We began to disappoint customers as we began to have some capacity challenges. We were on a good growth trajectory, I said, but but can staying up with production demands was a real was becoming an issue for us. And as I talked about what the alternatives were to people who were familiar with buying and selling business, I worked with a dear friend of mine, a couple of them.

11:33Will Fitzgibbon here in Nashville, who has an investment banking, is an investment banker and on the legal side, Mitch Walker. Both of those guys were very dear friends. I trust them all day long. And as we talked through a strategy going forward, the idea that you can't just sell into some company with no capacity remaining, you need to, you know, they're going to have need some time to digest the company, understand how it works. And you don't want to put them into a panic situation on day one. And I would say that we were about up to about 80 percent of our capacity. And we were actually having to we had a couple of customers we had say, you know, sorry, we can't we don't have enough capacity to help you anymore. That was extremely painful. And with that, we were also had existing customers that we wanted to continue working with that we were disappointing. And so that that was keeping me up at night. So going back to, you know, wanting to sleep well at night.

12:35Those were real challenges, didn't want to disappoint customers, didn't want to disappoint our sales team who was out there working really hard in our in our operations. Our production group was working hard to help meet these demands as well. So it was we were having some real challenges. We've been in this building over in Germantown now for about 20 years. And I never thought we would start to push the limits on capacity in that facility. But here we found ourselves really working. We had to I think we were 20, 20 hours a day. We had four shifts, four different lines working. And it was it was you know, there were some some sleepless nights there. We said that their decision came up with a point at that time was, OK, now what do we do? Do we make investment in the building in a new building? What way do we go? And frankly, I've been in it for 20 years.

13:36I'm 51. That's too young to retire, so to speak. But it was also I'm too I took the point of view that was too old to put the significant investment in that and get the return out of it for the next 10 to 15 years that I would have to do. So based on the size of the investment needed. So we began looking for a partner and I'm absolutely thrilled with riches. They have they have similar core values that we do. It's a family owned business. They are not pressured by outside shareholders to make decisions that might compromise the quality of the product, the quality of the business that we've developed over the years. We share share a lot of the same same values that way. I wasn't really sure that that would be the case going into it. But but they turned out to be just a wonderful partner. And I feel so fortunate to be associated with them.

14:37And that's always the just the best case scenario. No, it's just the best case scenario when that happens when you can find somebody that you're so in sync with that's able to come in. So were they able to bring you what were they able to bring you inside your pushing capacity or doing all of those things? Have you built another facility? Are you able to produce more now? What did they bring? We've not built enough. They brought us some real strength on the operations and the QA and the R&D side. OK, and we were beginning to integrate into the sales side, which is going to be very, very helpful as well. But the strength in their experience on the on the operation side has been really invaluable. They've brought us a team that I'm working side by side with now, and they're terrific and teaching us a lot of things that we didn't know. You know, and making some good investment in our building. They've committed to staying in our facility in Germantown.

15:40We do things like we we are benefiting from things like their Murphy's. Where we take finished goods and store it there. But all the production is remaining in Germantown with the same same people we've had there. Just it's a new leadership and they've come in and made a built trust right away in our team. And our team's really thrilled with the way it's going. We haven't had any not to fast forward too much, but through this difficult last year, we've really maintained our team throughout the process. So let's get into a little bit. That's fantastic. So excited for you. I know that that's a big time for the company and it's a it's a big shot in the arm and can definitely help. So you're riding high. You close on August 22nd. You go and probably a good Christmas last year and you go into 2020. You're doing a toast January 1st. Here we go. 2020, the new roaring 20s.

16:41This is going to be fantastic. We're so excited. Our future is so bright. And I remember the night of March the 2nd. My wife and I was a Monday night and we were trying to watch The Bachelor. It was like The Bachelor. Tell me what's appointment television. My wife and I. It's just one of those things we just love it. And they kept the show wasn't even on because they kept having these notifications. That there's weather. The weather. The show just wasn't even on because it was just weather. There's tornadoes coming and you know, there was nothing at our house. So we're kind of like, yeah, OK, went to bed to the next morning. Multiple text messages and just like, oh, my gosh, I went down to Germantown. I was in Germantown that next morning at eight thirty in the morning with a chainsaw at Germantown Cafe and just all in that area. I work with some restaurants over there. So I was just down there. And I remember seeing the carnage and kind of do a little bit of research for this interview.

17:41I looked back at my pictures from that morning. Gosh, I just had this emotional kind of response to looking at all those pictures I took that that morning. Tell me your personal experience as to what were you doing the night of March 2nd and how did that whole thing unfold? Well, I don't remember what we were watching that night. It wasn't the bathroom. It could. I doubt it, but it could have been. I woke up and I remember the sirens going off in the neighborhood where we live. And my wife, I think it's about two o'clock. She woke me up. She heard a bunch of like we had some pots and flower pots on the porch. And she got up and they go out to put them down the ground so they didn't fall off the table. And she went back to bed and she got up about four and she said, hey, I just turned on the news and this tornado hit pretty hard.

18:41You might want to. It looks like it's near your office. You might want to turn. You might want to watch this. And I said, and I was still asleep. I said, you know, whatever it is, it'll be fine. I'll see it in the morning. She said, no, I really think you need to look at this. And so I opened up my eyes. I look on TV and I think it was Channel 5 was actually broadcasting from in front of our building. And the whole facade is is torn off. So I jumped out of bed and I go down to the office and and Brian, our maintenance head of maintenance, he was already on site and just the two of us. And we we climbed up on the roof and to see what was going on. And it was, you know, aside from the bricks from the facade all being torn off, we had lost a good bit of the roofing had just been pulled back from the tornado. In addition to the roofing being pulled back, all the debris that the tornado picked up, picked up like trees and branches and threw it down on the roof.

19:51And we had this this membrane roof that basically just punctured. I think they counted something like 80 holes in the roof. So it was just like water waterfalls because remember, there was a big rain. They followed the tornado. So in addition to the tornado damage, the water just kept dripping into the roof and through these holes in the membrane in the area, the roof where it was pulled back was over a conference room upstairs. There had been about three or four inches of standing water in that conference room. And then that water, as you know, just it just pervaded throughout the entire office area upstairs. So Brian and I stood up on top of the roof and I looked over at the burger joint across the street. Jack Browns. Jack Browns. And they had this beautiful old tree that was set up. The picnic table sat under and it had been fully uprooted. And just all the carnage left behind was was just is devastating, devastating.

20:57And Germantown still hasn't really returned people yet as it was because all those apartment buildings were declared condemned. Yeah, around us. So we're missing people in Germantown these days. Wow. So was anybody that works for your company? Everybody was safe for you. You weren't in the middle of production of any kind during that time. We were not in production. We had a sanitation team that was in the building at the time. Everybody was fine. The tornado hit that the building's forty one thousand feet in the front. The tornado hit the front of the building where we have office and our bakery store front in the back of the building is the production area. And it just came right over their heads and they did. Nobody was hurt. Luckily, we had we had five people sitting or working in the facility at the time. Wow. So what do you do?

21:58I mean, gosh, you're there. You're looking around as the leader of this company. You're looking around. What what are you what's going through your brain? Are you just thinking like, what are we at sales? How are we going to produce product? Oh, my gosh. Like, what what are you thinking about? Well, that was the worries. How how quickly is do we have is our equipment damaged? And if so, how quickly can we get back into production? We do keep inventory on hand that and not at our facility, but as a preventative measure at an offsite toll storage facility. So we knew we had product that wasn't damaged as long as a tornado. We didn't know the tornado didn't hit that facility. But it turned out to be fine. But how quickly can we get back up and running? It became the main focus and and our team jump into place. And that's where the riches relationship was the first instance of like, wow, so glad to have this additional support because they brought a team in right away to to help us make sure we got up and running and we really never missed a beat.

23:10But but it was it was scary, but it was uncertainty. You just don't know. So you go through all of this and you you this other company, your company comes in, you get the support. You're up and running. What was the time from March 3rd? What day did you guys fully ramp up to reopen your production there? We put we ended up. We were down for we patched the roof first. And as soon as we patched the roof, we could get back up and running. And so we got we caught some backup on some inventory and within a couple of weeks, then we took took the plant down for a couple of weeks while we redid the we resurfaced the entire roof at that point. So we're down for two weeks. But but in between, we're able to build inventory to get us through that new roof period. Sure. I think in hindsight, I think we're down for about a month of before it was about a month after the tornado, I should say, before we were back to normal, really.

24:14And I would say normal because our bakery storefront to this day is still closed. Is is our main objective was to get the production back up and going. The windows on the front of the building were entirely blown out. There was glass everywhere and our ceilings were blown out as well. And so our eye in a moment of levity, like to say we got two week head start on covid because we had moved all of our staff home because of tornado because the office was in disrepair. So we did get a head start on remote work, which is not how we wanted to go about it. But we actually, you know, it actually in a way kind of fortunate. Yeah, that's you know, some of those restaurants that had some issues that had to close for a long time. I kind of thought, hey, they kind of in all when nobody was hurt, you know, the fact that insurance wasn't covering covid-19 as a appropriate, you know, as lost business.

25:20So, I mean, the fact that tornado could cover is lost business during that time. I think besides just the people not coming in, they kind of did OK. What else in the Germantown neighborhood? Because I know that's such a tight neighborhood and it's so it's one of my favorite neighborhoods in the entire city. And it's just been devastated through this. So many people are focusing on covid-19 right now. Are there things right now people can be doing to help in that neighborhood? Is there stuff that still needs to be done? Is there a foundation that people could donate to? If my listeners are listeners going, you know what? I kind of forgot about the tornado people and they still need help. What is there people can do right now? Is there anything? Well, I'm not sure of an organized effort, but we have some one thing I love is I listen to some of your previous recordings. Your Brandon is what you're doing for the local restaurants. And those have been the ones, whether it's covid or tornado, that have been hit so hard. And just bringing that to the forefront.

26:22We have so many low, good, locally, wonderfully locally owned restaurants in the Germantown area. I mean, it's really a hotbed for the restaurants in Nashville. And just come see us. Come to Germantown. Come eat at those restaurants or eat somewhere. Do and carry out whatever it may be. Just come. Those are those are the places that we want to have bounce back quickest. One of your comments, I think I heard you say, we don't necessarily need another Red Lobster or it's something like that. Sorry, Red Lobster. But but yes, come come see Henry Red Reds. Come see Jack Browns. All those places are, you know, just wonderful places for our city. Yeah, there's a there's a there's a whole bunch of restaurants over there in Germantown. I was going to ask you for a couple of your personal favorites, but it sounds like Henry Red Red and Jack Browns are real close to where you are in both fantastic places to go. They they are. Those are those are terrific spots.

27:24So, yeah, so we kind of touched on a little bit, but let's get into two weeks after the tornado. You're still getting stuff together. You're still trying to figure out what the heck happened. You're putting your neighborhood together and they close everything down. I mean, let's talk about who your number one clients are, who the people you sell the most cookies for you. I don't know if people know this. I didn't know this is that every time we go out of town, we go we stay at the Park Vista when we go to Gatlinburg. That is a double tree. Every time we go there, my kids like almost Pavlov's dog. They walk in the door and they go, where's my cookie? Where's my cookie? Where is it? And it's the best darn cookie on the planet. But the double trees, the cookie was it is a Christy cookie, right? Yeah, absolutely. We've been making the double tree cookie for since 1996. I think we're pretty close to approaching half a billion cookies that we've made for them over that over that time period.

28:27They've been a wonderful partner. It's the probably my proudest moment or almost a particular moment, but relationship, I'll say, of our company. We've been through we began working with them when DoubleTree was independently owned. They were then they merged with Hampton's and called the company called they renamed the company Promise. Then Promise was bought by Hilton. Hilton was bought by the Blackstone Group, taken private, then came back and went public again. And over the 20 years, it's the one relationship that I've held on to, knowing that it was our biggest relationship. When I got to the company, came to Christy cookies, they were 70 percent of our volume. And that was that was terrifying. And I thought, well, if somebody is going to mess this one up, it better be me that messes it up and not not somebody else. So over that 20 year period, I probably had 20 different relationship managers that I've worked with at Hilton.

29:30And I've got some dear friends that do that, some dear friends that have come out over the years. But it's they've been a wonderful partner. They are struggling right now. They're going through a difficult time. Hospitality industry is challenged as people are not traveling. The business travelers not out there right now. That's another one of your large clients is restaurants. You're selling to restaurants. We're selling to restaurants and we're selling to airlines. So we strike one, two and three. 19. Yeah. On a bright spot, though, what we are, we do a fair amount of business with with grocery bakery. And so that's been a it's not nearly enough for us to offset the the loss on the on the hospitality side. But but it's been a bright spot and kind of a, you know, a rough patch, so to speak. But but there are definitely signs of the the hospitality side picking up again.

30:35It's certainly they're they're coming back. But it's just a slow, slow comeback at this point. So all of this, I think I read that 80 percent of your business was reduced due to Covid-19. Just with restaurants, airlines and hotels, not really. I mean, airlines were basically not flying. They cut off all the different flights. Restaurants were closed for everything for all dine in. And then hotels have been essentially closed for a long time. They're kind of coming back now. But as a leader for your company, this is the kind of stuff that real true grit and this is how leaders are made. And you've been a leader in this company a long time. And one of the things I've been talking about on the show is how we've had to lead in a different way. You know, so nobody's there's no book. Patrick Lencioni didn't write a book that was, you know, death by meetings during a pandemic. There's nothing that is during a pandemic. You've had to I don't use the word pivot, but you've had to change the way you lead, I would assume, throughout all of this.

31:39How have you done that? And what's been the thing that you feel like has been most successful for you? And I'm asking on the other side, what's the what have you learned? What's the what's the biggest mistake that you've made? Yeah, well, I think it's a little bit day to day. You know, it's it's been it's just been overall difficult. But it's best we can staying in touch with our with our senior management team, trying to understand what their concerns are, what they're faced with. Just being there and being supportive and caring for them and what they're going through for all of our employees. It's tough time in that not just from a work standpoint that people are having challenges. If a spouse may have lost their job or experiencing any kind of if somebody in their home is experienced covid or whatever it may be, there's it's a very difficult time. And just trying to be compassionate and caring.

32:40Those are easy things to do. But they say, you know, I say it's easy, but it's also meaningful to those people is we have always wanted to be a family business and treat our co-workers from as family members to be there for them during this time. And that's been the biggest challenge. In addition to that, just just the care. It's been tough not seeing them face to face. And I think that's been the hardest part about it is, you know, these Zoom calls are, you know, it's nice to see somebody's face, but until you really get to see them. And I see somebody I'm giving hugs and not to be able to do that. I've actually implemented the bottom bump with a lot of our employees where we just bump each other that way because you don't even necessarily want to the fist bump is is even. Maybe a little passe, but. Well, I've always I think it's cool because chefs always, you know, if you walk into a kitchen, chefs always like cutting fish or, you know, doing whatever with their hands always have stuff on them.

33:44So I always thought that it was like an industry thing because I always walk in the kitchen to give guys the elbow, you know, like, what's up, what's up, what's up, what's up, what's up, what's up, what's up. And I think that's been the biggest challenge. And I think that's something that I think a lot of people are experiencing, but it's hard to put words into sort of before we were leading through a metric or some kind of KPI that we're kind of identifying, hey, our needs be this, this, this, this, and this. And it's almost easy to look at a PNL or look at numbers, daily metrics and make decisions. And while those things are important, right now, I think the PNL is the most important thing. And I think that's something that I think a lot of people are experiencing, but it's hard to put words into sort of before we were leading through a metric or some kind of KPI that we're kind of identifying, hey, our needs be this, this, this, this, and this. And it's almost easy to look at a PNL or look at numbers, daily metrics and make decisions. And while those things are important, right now, I think the people aspect of what we're doing is really where leadership has turned. And like you said, looking at somebody face to face, not just having phone calls, people need the interaction with somebody and they also need to know that you care.

34:46I mean, people that really spend time learning about their employees and learning about their spouses and their children and leading from an empathic view, I think right now is more vital than ever. And I just love that you kind of said that. That's exactly what you're saying is that we've really been, we care about our people and leading has changed a little bit because we do have to look at it that way. Am I paraphrasing the right way? No, that's I couldn't agree more. It's I've always tell whenever I interview somebody to come to work, I always say, you know, I want you to enjoy being here. I can't assure that you're going to enjoy being here. But if you're going to spend more working hours, more day, more hours in the day here than you are with your family, so enjoy it. And if it doesn't, if I can't create the environment that you enjoy, let me help you go somewhere else that you do, because why not? Why not be happy where you're working? And this may not be perfect place for everybody, but I do my best to make it that way, you know, to make it where you enjoy being looking forward to coming into work.

35:56Now, that's a little different right now because they're not coming into work. And that's where the, you know, the hardest part for me through all this has been not seeing people. We're not, you know, we're not in the office. We're not planning to we will be in the office to fulfill our holiday sales, which we expect to be robust with quarter force. But we're still going to be working remote for most of our team until after the New Year. And that's that's hard. Well, that was my one of my next questions was going to be what do you see the future over the next six months being? But have you made any mistakes throughout this? Have you done anything throughout this as a leader that you've kind of went, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. And what did you learn from that? You think you care to mention? I know that's not the thing most people like to admit. Well, as I said, I think of my kids as you say that is one of those things like until they're 25.

36:58Well, I know where they're 16 and 13 now. Well, I miss it. Maybe won't know until until they're 25 whether I made the mistakes or what they were. And it'll be too late. It'll be too late at that point. It's you know, it's been a little bit survival mode. And I don't you know, I did it during this period. You haven't had a whole lot of time to really debate, you know, a lot of decisions that are made. And it's been a little bit more fly by see the pants. The team at Rich's who's come in and the resources they brought us had really been extremely helpful in, you know, bringing some stability. I said without them, I think I might be balled up in a corner sucking my thumb in the fetal position had it not been for the help that they brought us. So I feel extremely fortunate.

38:00Yeah, I mean, that's another big part of leadership right now is listening to other people in collaboration. You know, having people like that that can help lead you. I think also is another big part for me is as I talk to leaders every day is I'm not just asking these questions for the general public. I'm looking for ideas, you know. I'm certainly out there talking. It's funny you said about the kids. I have five and seven year old boys who, you know, were out of school since like late February when the first Williamson County case was there. My kids were out of school. And I've been home too and I've been working and, you know, I'm normally, you know, seven to five. I try and be going all day long. I stay pretty busy as I'm sure you do as well. But every time that like I'm up here and I have like an office in my bonus room and I go downstairs and every time I walk downstairs, I'm like on the phone or I'm doing something. And I hear this dad, dad, you kind of see this, dad. I'm like, guys, hold on. I'm on the phone. I'm on the phone, which I'd normally not be at home working.

39:03But now I'm home and I have interacting in the middle of the day. Every time I do this, I hear in the back of my brain, I hear the song cats in the cradle play because I'm home all the time now. And it's like every time walking like when you come in home, son, I don't know. I'm like any day it's going to be this. William, you want to go out and play? He's like, dad, sorry, I got to go hang out with my friends. I'm busy. I'm busy. And I'm like, I had all this time during quarantine and I just worked. Yeah, it's yeah, I have no idea the damage I'm creating until a little bit later on. But it's funny you say that. OK, I'll just I'll just try to make it by and, you know, gosh, I hope this thing ends soon. So do I. So do I. I just, you know, we're at the about 40 minute mark in talking and that's about where I try and keep the interviews too. Is there anything you that I haven't covered? I just kind of wanted to hear your perspective.

40:03What your story was, what's your last? You know, I said your last 13 months had a lot going on and anything else you particularly want to talk about? I was going to tell you a story about do I did I read correctly? You have a distribution background. Yes. OK, that's what I thought. So one of the one of the biggest moments in our in the time that I've been at Christy Cookie. So was 2013 in 2000 to back up to 2001. We won the private label Gourmet Cookie for US Foods. Then you were you have it was US Foods where you were, right? Yeah, I was a district sales manager at US Foods. OK, you remember the Devonshire line of desserts? Of course. OK, so we made the Devonshire cookie. For from 2001 to 2013.

41:06In 2013, there was a management change and there were some connections. We were actually put out to RFP. We were it was our recipe. It was the same recipe we made for Devonshire as we put under our brand today. This was like one of those moments. It was like the worst time and the best time. And the worst time is that basically, naively, as far as lessons learned, naively, we lost that business. And I thought, well, we can't lose it because we own the recipe. Well, what I learned is that somebody can knock off the recipe and put it in. You know, and that's the dangers of private label. So at that point, we learned the face with the decision of it was about a third of our revenue that we lost with that at that time. And it happened real fast. And what to do at that point.

42:07And so faced with the cut costs or do you reinvest? And we invested a significant amount of money into rebranding Christie cookies and worked with who's now become just a dear friend. I got him Paul Brothers and his firm out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, brothers and company. And the brand that you see today on Christie cookies is what came out of our rebranding. The mission there was to tell our story, to talk about our quality of ingredients, talk about our care for our customers and our tradition and heritage. And that we began to tell the story a whole lot better than we had ever told it before, because prior to that, we were really focused on selling this Devonshire brand. And it wasn't our story. It was somebody else's story. But at the time, it was it was it was needed volume. But so it's one of those things like we got we got let go from US foods.

43:11It was a terrifying time. But in hindsight is the best thing that ever happened to our company. The rebranding taking making the decision to rebrand to go down that path to build our brand, which is in hindsight, all that we can really control is what we own. We own the brand was was a powerful lesson. And the best thing that ever happened to Christie cookies. That's what was the genesis for that sales increase that carried all the way to 2017 18, where we realized, OK, we're growing at such a rate that we're going to need a new partner to help us carry on or investment. And that was where the decision to sell to riches came from. Wow. What a cool story. I love stories like that. I'm going to lose half my listeners right now with what I'm about to say. And it's OK. I'm a spiritual person. And sometimes I believe that things happen for a reason.

44:11You know, I believe it wholeheartedly that sometimes through through the ashes come amazing things. And sometimes when you can't control everything that happens, sometimes you just kind of got to put it in somebody else's hands and take care of you. It's amazing how sometimes these adverse experiences can turn into something that, you know, you had no idea what's going to happen. That's happened in my life multiple times, and I have one one person to thank. And it sounds like a similar situation there. Yeah, that was an awfully fortunate. We're very fortunate to come out of there and feel lucky every day. That's amazing. I always end every interview with a kind of maybe this was that story. If there's anything you want to say, if you want to open, I open the floor to all of my guests to say whatever they want to the city of Nashville. You have an open mic.

45:11Say whatever you want. Finish off the interview with words of wisdom, rant, complaint, joy, whatever you want to say. No complaints here. I love the message of your program, so I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but visit our locally owned restaurants. Those are the people who are out there on the front lines trying to those are the plate establishments we need to see rise up out of this difficult time. And the way to help them is to go eat at those restaurants and support them, support the servers, the bartenders and the restaurants themselves. And hopefully this stuff all passes over quick. That's what makes our cities, those restaurants are what make this city so great. Amen. Amen. They are. And I could say a lot more on top of that. But thank you for coming on the show today.

46:12Thank you for spending the time with us and sharing your story. Thanks, Brandon. I enjoyed it. It's a lot of fun. Thanks. Fleming will. Big thank you to Fleming will for joining Nashville restaurant radio and squeaky wheel PR. I want to say a big thank you to Amanda Virgilito. She is amazing and just wanted to thank everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I don't care who you are. We just want to say thank you because whatever it is you're doing out there, I'm sure it's awesome. And you may not have heard thank you today from somebody for something that you did. But you know what? I'm saying it right now. Thank you. You are appreciated. You are awesome. You're an amazing person. Whatever you're doing right now, just pat yourself on the back because we all need a little bit of affirmation today. And you are enough. You're amazing.

47:13Yes, you. You're who I'm talking to. Thank you all for listening today. We hope that you are being safe and we will see you Thursday at three thirty live on Facebook and YouTube for the roundup. Love you guys. Bye.